Goldman climbs to top commodity bank ranking over JP Morgan

LONDON (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs became the top commodities bank last year, overtaking rival JP Morgan, a consultancy said on Friday.

A trader works at the Goldman Sachs stall on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, April 16, 2012. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Goldman had the largest commodity revenues of any investment bank last year, financial industry analytics firm Coalition said in a report. It did not give a breakdown of commodity revenues for each bank in its ranking, which showed JP Morgan in second and Morgan Stanley in third place.

Goldman has stuck with commodities while rivals such as JP Morgan have pulled back. In January, Goldman highlighted it as a bright spot in the bank’s broader fixed-income trading business, which had a rough quarter.

JP Morgan last year sold its physical commodities business to Mercuria for $3.5 billion because of rising regulatory and political pressure.

Last month, Coalition said commodities revenue at the top 10 investment banks climbed by 9 percent in 2014, reversing three years of declines, due to increased activity in energy markets as oil went into freefall,

Revenue earned by leading banks from commodity trading, selling derivatives to investors and other activities in the sector rose to $4.9 billion from $4.5 billion in 2013.

Despite the recovery in top banks’ commodities revenue last year, it was still just over a third of the $14.1 billion they racked up in 2008 at the height of the commodities boom.

Banks including Credit Suisse continued an exodus from commodities trading in 2014 due partly to tougher regulation and higher capital requirements after the global financial crisis.